STUCCO NEWS.NET

How do you get a wall straight with a string line?

Badly out of square wall is straightened using a string line and dots and screeds. Arrow shows finished thickness of the brown coat; barely 3/4" on left and over 2" on the right. You could see this all the way from the alley below.

String is set with a nail on the inside corner (angle). Wood strip is set with a string on the outside corner (arris).

Here a wood block is used for a dot, and taken off when the brown coat is finished. There are probably a hundred ways to do this-pieces of cardboard, newspaper, molding plaster or whatever. What I am trying to do here is to establish the wall thickness. Dots are set less than 6 feet apart, because we are using a six foot rod to set screeds, that is fill in between the dots.

Area between wood blocks is filled and rodded off. Here Carlos checks the screed with a 6 foot rod. It was hard to get a good shot with the shadows and scaffold in the way. I hope you see what is going on.

Wall is filled and rodded off between the screeds. Heavy areas had to be filled in a little at a time to avoid sagging. Having a hot day really helped.

Wall is dead straight. View is from the basement looking up. The pride of a good plasterer is getting the angle (inside corner) straight. This is an overview on dots and screeds and straightening a wall. There are other ways this can be done.

Here a screed is set with a rod on this interior plaster installation. A screed is set at the bottom horizontally and another five feet up. After the screeds tighten up, the area in between is filled and rodded by holding the rod vertically. These screeds are soft screeds, or are filled in between the same day. Other screeds are allowed to set overnight.